


you thought by now they'd see

by pleasekalemenow



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Expansion of Canon, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, I added like. three whole verses for "The Hanged Man Rusts", I just have feelings for and about brian okay, Missing Scene, not shippy btw, y'all I wrote actual lyrics for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23439178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasekalemenow/pseuds/pleasekalemenow
Summary: Brian had more of a history with Mordred than he cared to include in the album. Some things were just too personal.(A series of scenes exploring Brian's feelings as they pertain to the would-be peacemaker.)---Title is from "One More Time with Feeling" by Regina Spektor.
Relationships: Drumbot Brian & Mordred
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63
Collections: Mechs Fic Exchange





	you thought by now they'd see

**Author's Note:**

  * For [horrorterroronesie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horrorterroronesie/gifts).



Brian had been hanging in the center of Camelot for longer than it had been going by that name, and he couldn’t recall a time when it hadn’t been occupied in some fashion or other. Clan gave rise to clan gave rise to short-lived empire gave way to family gave way to city until it eventually came to be known as Camelot (which Brian Knew would be the last name given to it) and came under sheriff after sheriff after sheriff until the day he told Sheriff Stone that the Pendragons were riding into Camelot only to be ignored. One would expect him to have met all kinds of people in that time. And, he supposed he had _met_ a lot of people, but that was it, really; just _meeting_ . The first few generations after he was hanged remembered why he was there and either avoided or engaged with him appropriately, but after he fell out of memory and became a feature of the town rather than a _person_...well. It would be silly to talk to a tree. It would be silly to talk to Brian.

Arthur talked to him out of curiosity, because that’s what he was now: a curiosity. A bit of local color. But Brian knew that Mordred would speak with him rather than to him, just as surely as he knew that the Pendragons would love each other until their ends, and just as surely as he knew that he would eventually find his way back to the Aurora. He didn’t know who Mordred was, at first, but he had no choice but to pick up the signals from the station and the cameras around Camelot and the nearby wastes gave him plenty of information to go on. He even had a prophecy about the boy for Arthur, although, predictably, he was ignored. But he watched Mordred enter the town, a strong young man, a gleam in his eyes and confidence in his gait, and was filled with an uncanny dread as much as he was filled with hope.

One day, the young man stood before him in clothes somehow not yet stained by the ever-pervasive rust.

“So, you’re the Hanged Man?” His voice was curious, not leering. It was a welcome change of pace.

“My pronouns are he/him and I’ve definitely been hanging for a while.”

“Merlin,” Mordred said, squinting at his breastplate. “That’s your name, right? Not some old term for the crime you were hanged for?”

Brian laughed. “It’s neither, actually. The sandstorms can be quite harsh.”

“Oh, of course.” He paused. “I can’t imagine being stuck out in some of the sandstorms we’ve had.”

“I can.”

“Would you--I could cut you free, if you like? I’d need to know why you were hanged, first, but--”

“I’ll find my way onto solid ground eventually.” Brian cocked his head slightly, hesitating for a moment. “Why are you talking to me? I’m not complaining, obviously, but.”

The young man snorted. “I thought you were meant to be a prophet. You really don’t know?”

Brian sighed, a feat considering his current circumstances. “I don’t choose what I see.”

“Then how does it work, if not by choice?” He took a swig of something from a flask at his hip, and after a moment of consideration, held it out to offer some to Brian. Brian, of course, didn’t _need_ to drink, but he parted his lips anyway, and Mordred got on tiptoes to pour some of the liquid--rust-tinged water that was all these people knew--into his mouth. It was strange; he’d gotten out of the habit of swallowing in any capacity, so he wasn’t accustomed to it. Much like touch and mechanical repairs, nourishment was a comfort he didn’t technically require and so had had to learn to go without during his extended tenure as a local oddity. He let out a huff of air in relief as the tepid liquid washed out his dusty throat. 

“Thank you.” He cleared his throat once more. “The knowledge comes on suddenly, usually when I’m speaking to someone, and then it makes its way out in song.”

“Hm.” Mordred took another sip from his flask. “How’d that start?”

“I don’t know.” Brian was grateful that he didn’t know the specifics, frankly, because although he suspected it had something to do with Doctor Carmilla, he hadn’t had the emotional energy to disclose his trauma in several centuries, and he had been stuck on MJE for the last of those at the very least.

Mordred hesitated, toeing the dust a bit before looking back at him. “Don’t suppose you know anything about whether my father will ever recognize me?”

Brian’s heart broke a bit at the question, and he was about to open his mouth to apologize, say that he didn’t know, when suddenly he Knew that the boy would eventually be known by his father. Presently, song began to bubble up in him.

“My dear child, you’re strong, withstanding

Your father’s lack of understanding

And as your world is fast expanding

It’s difficult to stand alone.

Take heart, he won’t stay blind forever

So steady on, as you endeavor

To bring your peace, he shall not sever

You once again out of his life.”

Mordred’s expression brightened faintly as a smile took over his face, and, spurred on by the strange song of the sun carried on the hot breeze, he sang.

“You say that my father will see me,

Well, Hanged Man, I hope that it’s true;

I simply cannot see a future

Such as the one described by you.

I’ll try to keep faith in your vision,

Hold fast so that it might come true

I’ve no one else left to look to, ooh.”

Once his song was sung, he seemed confused, and flushed red, rushing away in a hurry. But he would be back. Brian Knew he would.

\---

Arthur continued coming to visit Brian, and more often than not, he couldn’t stop himself from trying to impress upon the Sheriff that his grief was misplaced. The man never listened, of course, but the last time he tried to tell him the truth of the situation turned out to be the worst.

“It’s wrong to lie, Arthur, I couldn’t do it if I wanted to, which I don’t.”

“You’re being ridiculous. I don’t even know why I come to talk to you anymore, you never tell me anything but the same nonsense.”

Brian felt the prophecy coming before it actually came out, of course, but there was still nothing for him to do to stop it.

“Please, fair Arthur, you must believe

It is not my aim to deceive you

And though for ten long years you’ve grieved

It must at last come to an end.

Mordred’s your son, you have to see

The bright young man he’s come to be

If you cannot, then to your knee

You’ll soon fall in hopeless despair.”

Try as he might, Arthur could not stop his words from coming out in song, even as he fixed the Hanged Man with a vicious glare.

“Hanged Man, I’ve nothing to say here

That hasn’t already been said.

You know just as well as I do

My daughter is eaten and dead.

I know not what game you are playing,

Nor why you feed Mordred with lies.

Do you take delight in our cries?”

Ultimately, he didn’t get to answer, because he raised his railgun and shot him clean between his eyes. Brian would never see him again, he Knew, save through the cameras around Camelot. But he also knew he had done the ethical action, even if it had been for naught.

He tried to take comfort in that fact.

\---

Mordred visited Brian more often than Arthur ever had. The two of them became...well, it was hard to be close to _anyone_ when you were hanging in the middle of town, but Brian cared for the young man, at least. It was hard not to; good people were rare enough, let alone _idealists_. He reminded him of things he hadn’t had in a long, long time.

So, naturally, when he realized while talking to him one day that his dreams were doomed to abysmal failure, he immediately powered himself off to avoid disillusioning him out of nowhere.

He hated powering down. One moment he was in one situation, the next he was in an entirely different one, and every time he was disoriented so violently there was a part of him that went somewhere else entirely. But, it was worth it to him this time. The moment his eyes opened again, in the first light of Avalon’s rays, his lips began moving of their own volition.

“Mordred, peacemaker, naiveté blinds you;

You thought the worst was yet behind you,

But all the ideals that you cling tight to

Will fall away into your grave.

The grief behind has nothing on what's in store.

All you loved will pass forevermore,

And, through a relic of Camelot's days of yore,

Burn to a crisp in the sun.”

There was no response this time, no rebuttal. The only song on the breeze was the gentle hum of the dying station and the quiet screams of the ghosts not yet dead.

\---

Brian Knew that Mordred’s efforts were doomed to failure. Still, he screamed from afar as he saw the scorpion on the camera, saw the ghoul, saw Gawain--

And he wept as he watched the bloodshed that ensued.

Surely, he’d done everything he could have done. He’d prophesied to so many people; it wasn’t his fault only a few had listened. He wondered if perhaps he shouldn’t have tried to shield Mordred from the truth of his fate, but there was nothing for it.

All he could do was bear witness to the massacre of Mordred’s dreams as, around the Great Round Table, the Pendragons had their storm before the hurricane.

\---

The heat kept growing more intense as Mordred drove the remains of Fort Galfridian into its cremation. He couldn’t blame him--well, he _could_ , of course, but he understood his grief and his anger. Perhaps the worst part of all this wasn’t the knowledge that he was going to experience the full heat of the sun for however long it took the others to come back to find him (after all, he couldn’t die and he couldn’t go insane, so what was a little more trauma when he was sure he’d be in there for a decade at most), but rather the fact that he could see Mordred while the young man believed himself to be truly, truly alone. It was a feeling Brian knew all too well, and for all his abilities, there was really nothing he could do to help him.

He managed to cut the wires holding him--wasn’t too hard once he cared to do it--but once he fell, he immediately went to his knees, every joint and gear in his body as rusted as the sand on which he was kneeling. He desperately willed his body to repair itself faster, tried to stand, to move towards Mordred so that he wouldn’t be _alone_ as he went into his end, but it was no use. As the horizon was eclipsed and then consumed by the uncaring star, Brian watched, eyes burning and metal warping in the heat as he lost the signal of the base and was alone yet again.


End file.
